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FlickType Founder Kosta Eleftheriou, who has repeatedly spoken about fraudulent apps, today announced that the iPhone portion of his FlickType Watch Keyboard app will be on hold due to ongoing issues with the App review team. Apple Store.
Eleftheriou says the FlickType team is no longer able to put up with Apple’s abuse after dealing with “obstacle after obstacle” over the years, culminating in a recent rejection last week.
It is with a heavy heart today that we announce the discontinuation of our award-winning iPhone keyboard for blind users. Apple has thrown us obstacle after obstacle for years as we try to deliver an app to improve people’s lives, and we can no longer stand their abuse. pic.twitter.com/cH1HCQzeP1
– FlickType watch keyboard (@FlickType) August 16, 2021
FlickType Keyboard is an Apple Watch keyboard that can be used as an alternative to Apple’s built-in Scribble feature. It allows tap typing or swiping typing, and the app description says it’s up to three times faster than the standard keyboard. There is also an iPhone keyboard component designed specifically for blind and visually impaired VoiceOver users that includes large keys, high contrast colors, and VoiceOver feedback. This is the part of the application that is deleted.
An update to FlickType with bug fixes and VoiceOver improvements was submitted last week. Although it didn’t add any new features, Apple rejected the app and said it wouldn’t work without full access, an issue that Eleftheriou said was fixed three years ago.
We tried to contact Apple a total of 9 times in the past week with no success. At this point, they seem to ignore our attempts to contact them directly, although we have previously explicitly said to “feel free” to contact them if we need “further clarification”. – FlickType watch keyboard (@FlickType) August 16, 2021
After being unable to contact the Apple App Store review team to resolve the issue, the FlickType app is terminated. The developers of FlickType wanted to keep the keyboard extension available as a beta version of TestFlight, but Apple rejected the idea. The long-term option is to provide the container input app with a share button to export text, without the ability to keep the functional iPhone keyboard in its current form.
Eleftheriou previously filed a lawsuit against Apple in March over Apple’s failure to get rid of copy apps, and today pointed to Apple’s “terrible” third-party keyboard APIs as another reason for it. stopping the application. Apple’s keyboard APIs have reportedly been “buggy, inconsistent, constantly evolving, and broken” since 2014.
Eleftheriou says he hopes to someday make the app a “real” keyboard app on the iPhone and Apple Watch, “hopefully outside the App Store” in reference to current US law. which would require Apple to authorize an alternative third party. party app stores and sideloading.
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